General objectives – General learning outcomes

The course helps students get acquainted with the concepts, methods and techniques associated with the diagnosis and development of the countryside, on the scales of Communities, Municipalities and Territorial Areas (territories) based on the specificities and potential territorial resources they have. The knowledge and skills offered by the course aim to provide students with the ability to design and implement a comprehensive methodology for diagnosing and promoting territorial resources by incorporating special techniques and specialized high-tech tools developed by the Laboratory of Rural Space.

The course consists of 13 lectures covering the most important fields of territorial development. More specifically, the course includes the following:

1^ο lecture

• The concept of rural (definition)

• Structures and organization of rural areas:

• Land uses, residential network, infrastructure
• Production models,
• Administrative system-decentralization

• Typologies

2^ο lecture

• • The rural development approach:
  • Sustainable development
  • Territorial development approach :
  • • Resources, Actors, coordination, Competitiveness

3^ο lecture

• • Policy & Development Framework for the Rural, Common Agricultural Policy

4^ο lecture

• • Policy & Development Framework for the Rural, Common Agricultural Policy

5^ο lecture

• Territorial Diagnosis: Integrated methodology for diagnosing rural areas

Methods, sources, spatial analysis tools, consultation

Diagnosis organization (Stakeholders – Cooperation)

6^ο lecture

• Territorial Diagnosis: identification of territorial resources methodology
  • Identification, valorization of territorial resources
  • Territorial ties
  • Emergence issues (micro-spatial interventions)

7^ο lecture

• Build and promote a new rural economy
  • Cross-sectoral ties, basket of local goods
  • Participatory guarantee system of specificity of the territorial products.
  • Territorial Marketing

8^ο lecture

• Agri-environmental management
  • Territorial development, resources and agri-enviromental management
  • Environmental management tools and policies: NATURA 2000 areas and High Nature Value Areas
  • RDP / Agri-environmental measures

9^ο lecture

• Agri-environmental management
  • Participatory planning – local actors
  • Management plans10^ο lecture

10^ο lecture

• Living environment:  
  • Education, health, welfare, etc.
  • Culture, sports, etc.
  • Technical infrastructure, Connectivity

11^ο lecture

• Support mechanism and forms
  • Cooperation forms
  • coordination – governance

12^ο lecture

• Integrated territorial development plan
  • Actors, resources, cooperation, coordination

13^ο lecture

• Presentation of group coursework

Group coursework:

Ability to produce/participate in a group coursework to train students in the management and synthesis of information from multiple sources and in an interdisciplinary way as well as in the coordination of multidisciplinary schemes by developing critical thinking.

The group coursework assesses the degree of consolidation of the ability to distinguish and interpret the problems encountered, proposals and action planning. Also, the skills to compose through their engagement with the synthesis of integrated proposals based on the spatial analysis of the small scale, on the organization of the consultations and on the cooperation and coordination of the involved actors.

• • Σημειώσεις Μαθήματος Ανάπτυξης Αγροτικού Χώρου
• • Michael WOODS: Γεωγραφία της Υπαίθρου. Διαδικασίες, αποκρίσεις και εμπειρίες αγροτικής αναδιάρθρωσης. Επιμέλεια Ανθοπούλου Θεοδοσία Εκδόσεις ΚΡΙΤΙΚΗ, 2011, Αθήνα
• • Γούσιος Δ. (1999). "Ύπαιθρος, Αγροτικός χώρος και μικρή πόλη: από τη γεωργοποίηση στη τοπική ανάπτυξη". In “Η ανάπτυξη των ελληνικών πόλεων”. Εκδ. Παπαζήση.
• • National Strategy for the Development of Mountain Areas of the Republic of Cyprus (2019)
• • Anthopoulou Th., (2013) «Food locality and specificity» Ed. Papazisi, Athens
• • Goussios D., Anthopoulou Th., Tsimpoukas K., (2014), Developing the typical dairy products of Thessaly: Diagnosis and local strategy (greek, french and english) LACTIMED project. European program MED
• • Action plan for the promotion of the semi-nomadic intangible cultural heritage of the area of Aspropotamos and its inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, 2015 Leader Programme.
• • Anthopoulou Th., Goussios D. (2015): "Activating territorial specificities under a national cheese label. Cooperation of small dairy territories to promote local-placed Feta in Thessaly Region" in the 145th EAAE Seminar "Intellectual Property Rights for Geographical Indications: What is at stake in the TTIP?", April 1-15, 2015, Parma, Italy.
• • Goussios D., Mardakis Pr., Faraslis I. (2018): " The Farsala-Almyros route of 1809: Mapping the landscape through Leake's descriptions,” in E’ conference of Almiros Studies", Almyros, 14-16 October 2016.
• • The baseline assessment of HNV-Learning Area of Thessaly. Program HORIZON 2020 (2017), Laboratory of Rural Space
• • Strengthening sustainable food systems through geographical indications. An analysis of economic impacts. 2018, FAO, European Bank Rome